


What's A Soulmate?

by bonespell



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Can you tell?, Hurt No Comfort, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), No beta we die like cryptids, i don't think it's coherent, i'm projecting onto legend, it's 4:30 am and i just finished it, the boys and marin and ravio and legend's uncle are mentioned, this is a vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonespell/pseuds/bonespell
Summary: Legend doesn't remember what it's like to be loved.or, a study in trauma.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 86





	What's A Soulmate?

Legend doesn’t know if he remembers, really, what it’s like to be loved.

Objectively, sure. He knows what love is. Love is when his uncle would stroke his hair when he was sick. Love was the time he and Marin shared, even if it wasn’t real. Love is the way Ravio always has a warm meal and a warm embrace ready for him when he comes stumbling through his front door.

Despite all this, completely irrationally, he doesn’t remember what it’s like to be loved.

He knows the others love him, too. None of them are the type to outright say it, but he’s always been good at reading people. He sees it when Wild puts extra spice in his dish especially for him. He sees it when that Hyrule and Wind will curl up against him around the fire. He sees it on his bad days, because somehow they always know.

He sees it when Twilight carries him while he’s asleep for a whole day, once, because he knew Legend hadn’t been sleeping well. He sees when Four will sit by him, offering support silently. He sees it when Time will march him off to bed, and in the way that Warriors will sometimes allow him to curl up in the ends of his brilliant blue scarf. He sees it in the hugs Sky will offer him, that he will accept.

Despite all this, Legend doesn’t remember what it’s like to be loved.

Legend closed himself off long ago. He was young, and his hair was still a brilliant pink back then. He thought it would be easier, to not feel. It is and also isn’t. It’s contradictory, but Legend doesn’t know anything about feeling, anymore. It’s been so long since he let down his walls.

The dam will break, eventually. At some point, he’ll be forced to confront it all. Foolishly, Legend believes he can hold it back, press his palms against the leak in the barrier and cover them before the whole facade comes crashing down. The water pressure makes his head hurt, makes him want to scream and cry in the light of the crackling campfire.

He won’t. He doesn’t remember how to cry.

Legend presses his forehead to his knees, curled in his corner. The others think he retired to bed already. He doesn’t want to correct them. Legend doesn’t remember how to ask for help. He’s a great listener, has been told he gives great advice - but asking?

He knows you’re meant to ask the people who love you for help, but Legend doesn’t remember what it’s like to be loved.

All his life he’s been told about soulmates. Someday, you’ll find the one for you. You can settle down and live a perfect life. Legend thinks he left a perfect life back on an island that never existed, or back in a small house with a warm hearth and welcoming company. Someday, when this all ends, he’ll think he left a perfect life on the road, travelling with a group of extraordinary people.

Someday, everything comes to an end. Legend believes the concept of finding a soulmate is horseshit. He thinks that’s because he doesn’t remember what it feels like to be loved.

As Legend watches the others laugh and joke around a dying fire, he yearns. Yearns to know what love feels like again. Yearns to know what it feels like to be able to open your heart to anyone else. Yearns to know how feeling whole is.

But he doesn’t remember what it’s like to be loved.

Sitting in the dark, Legend considers the idea that he doesn’t remember how to love, either.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm projecting.


End file.
